School Council (to 2017) & JLT

The Junior Leadership Team (JLT) was established in Autumn 2017 to ensure our pupils were fully involved with developing and supporting the school's Key Areas of Research (KAR).

Members act as the 'spokespeople' for the children in their class, as all children are encouraged to be researchers!

Our School Council Members (up to 2017)

Welcome to our School Council Page

We are a group of 13 pupils who want to give a voice to the children in our school and to think of ways to make our school even better. Please keep looking back on our page to see what we have been doing in our meetings!

On Friday 27th January four of our Year 5 and 6 school council members attended the Outer North West Children's Voice Event at Prince Henry's Grammar School

Meeting school council members from other schools was really interesting and we worked as a team to decide how £40,000 of money could be spend on activities for children in our area. We enjoyed sampling some of the activities that included Minecraft and drama workshops.

The day also taught us lots about democracy and thinking about activities that would suit everyone. We were also inspired by the Leeds Children's mayor who spoke with confidence about being in the Leeds Youth parliament. The local councillors from our area was there and shared information about their role.

Please see below a letter written by Councillor Pat Latty about the day.

Good afternoon everyone,

I would like to send a message of thanks to all the Councillors, partners and young people who attended Outer North West Community Committee Young People’s Voice on 27th January at Otley Prince Henry’s Grammar School.

This is the 3rd annual event the Committee has arranged and I would like to think our best one yet!

This year we had representation from 30 primary and high schools across the outer north west area with 100 students participating in a range of physical and desk based activities. I would particularly like to thank all those schools who supported the event and were able to release staff to accompany their young people and allow them to take part. It’s not often we have the opportunity to bring young people together from so many different schools to talk about what’s important to them and hear their voice.

This year for the first time, we were able to have a few activity providers there to allow the students to try out some of the different activities we have funded in the past and I would like to thank Jacob and Lucy from The Oddballs School Of Theatrical Extravaganzas (Drama), Kyle and Nathan from ACES (Sports), Beth from Forest Found (Bushcraft) and Ian and Liz from Library Services (Minecraft and Coding) for attending in their own time. Their enthusiasm and commitment to working with the young people on Friday made those sessions fun and engaging and demonstrated what they can offer.

As has been the case in previous years, the afternoon saw Councillors and young people deciding together how best to spend a potential £40,000 of funding across the area. The Youth Activity Fund is there to fund activities for young people in this area and the Committee needs to know how and where to spend that money, so young peoples’ opinions and input is vital to ensure money is allocated fairly and spent on what is really wanted.

We received some really helpful feedback from the young people who attended and I will ensure that a full discussion takes place at our next Councillors meeting to look at this.

I would like to thank Richard and Kim for leading the day and Rachel and Susan from the Communities Team who organised the event. Thanks must also go to Simon, Phil, Amanda and in particular Vicki and Lucy from the Clusters and Andrew and Caroline for all their efforts in ensuring this day was such a success.

My particular thanks must also go to all the young people who attended, they were a credit to their schools and it was wonderful to see the enthusiasm with which they approached the tasks and activity taster sessions.

Finally I would like to extend thanks to Prince Henry’s for hosting the event this year, Phil Temple and Pippa Mcpherson were particularly supportive and enthusiastic. The school also fielded some of their students to help on the day, directing people and generally helping out – what wonderful friendly ambassadors they were.

I hope everyone who had opportunity to attend, found it both an informative and an enjoyable event.

Kindest regards

Cllr Pat Latty

Children’s Champion

Outer North West Community Committee

5.10.16

Today was the first meeting for our new school council members. We elected a chair person, a vice chair person, a secretary and a vice secretary. We discussed the format of our meetings and agreed that we would go back to class to get ideas or issues from the other pupils. Our next meeting is on Tuesday 17th October.

17.3.16

Over the last few weeks our meetings have focused on

- Thinking about pupils leading clubs e.g. chess club

-Reminding pupils about not playing on the climbing frames before school if you are not with an adult

4.1.16

This week we elected a Chair (Amy), a vice chair (Finley), a Secretary (Reuben) and a vice Secretary (Grace). We also started using an organised agenda to ensure we were focused during our meetings. We decided to use the green postbox outside the office for pupils to post ideas to the school council. We are getting more classes paired up with their buddy readers. Dan has also organised his chess club for Thursday afternoons. The meeting minutes were put in each register and on our noticeboard for everyone to see.

29.1.16

On Friday 29th January three school council members attended the Outer North West Children's Voice Event at Horsforth High School.

It was a great opportunity to meet the councillors for our area and ask them questions about their job. We thought about the things that we like about the area where we live and the things that would make it better.

Meeting school council members from other schools was also really interesting and we worked as a team to decide how £56,000 of money could be spend on activities for children in our area.

Message from Councillor Pat Latty – Children’s Champion & Chair of the Outer North West Community Committee’s, Children’s Services and Family Health sub group.

Dear all

I would like to send a message of thanks to all the Councillors, partners and young people who attended Outer North West Community Committee Youth Engagement event on 29th January at Horsforth School.

The aim of the event was twofold, to better understand the needs of children and young people in the area in terms of what activities they would like to see taking place over the coming year and to enable the students opportunity to speak to Councillors, ask them questions and find out more about their roles and local governance.

To get things started Richard Cracknell from the Voice and Influence Team asked the young people to put down what they liked and what they didn’t like about their area as part of a flipchart relay exercise. This was followed by a question and answer session with Councillors from the Community Committee. The students were asked to put forward questions and we received over 80 back to put to the Councillors. The Councillors responded to the questions with enthusiasm and enjoyed the opportunity to talk to the young people regarding the benefits of voting and participating in a democratic society.

We then had lunch with meat/vegetarian lasagne or sausages & mash on offer with sponge and custard for dessert. The outer north west Children’s Services sub group very kindly covered the cost of feeding the 146 people attending the event.

In another example of representation in the outer north-west, Charlotte Fletcher from Benton Park and Liberty Branston from Guiseley presented their manifestos as part of their campaigns to be Members of the UK Youth Parliament.

This was followed by teenagers from the Yeadon Youth Group giving a short presentation on their fundraising activities and how being part of the group has changed their lives, giving them a sense of purpose, a chance to make a difference and learn new skills.

The final afternoon session saw 11 groups of Councillors and young people deciding together how best to spend a potential £56,000 Youth Activity Fund across the area. This was another lively session, with problems such as how difficult it was to spend money equally, whether to buy more of a particular activity rather than lots of small ones, identified by the participants. We received some excellent feedback from the groups which will help shape future spend of the Youth Activity Fund.

We received some really helpful feedback from the young people who attended and I will ensure that a full discussion takes place at the next sub group meeting to look at this.

We had an excellent attendance with over 100 young people present from 27 different primary and high schools across the outer north-west and I would like to thank Richard Cracknell and Kim Bright for leading the day and staff from the Communities Team who organised the event. Thanks also go to Simon Toyne, Phil Temple, Amanda Bradley, Lucy Gaunt and in particular Vicki Madeley from the Clusters for all their efforts in ensuring this day was the success it was and also to Andrew Derra from Youth Service for his help in planning the event and working with the Yeadon Youth Group on their presentation.

My particular thanks must also go to all the young people who attended, they were a credit to their schools and it was wonderful to see the enthusiasm with which they approached the tasks and had their say about where they live and their preferences for activities.

Finally I would particularly like to thank Horsforth School for hosting the event and being so accommodating.

I hope everyone who had opportunity to attend found it both an informative and an enjoyable event.

Kindest regards

Cllr Pat Latty

7.1.16

We met to discuss the issues brought up in each class. We decided that we would focus on;

-Each class having buddy readers

-Having somewhere for the rest of the school to share their ideas

-Having more clubs

5.11.15 and 7.1.16

Our school held two open mornings. We enjoyed telling prospective parents all the reasons why we love our school and why they should choose Pool School for their child! Afterwards, we were responsible for taking them on the grand tour!

2.11.15

We delivered an assembly to the school to tell them what we have been talking about in our meetings. We asked classes to have a circle time to discuss some of the issues such as

-Our Pool Peace Garden

-Clubs

-Buddy Reading

-Improving playtimes

-Book band colours in KS2 and keeping our library

13.10.15

Our first meeting was held and we started to plan a presentation for our Open Morning on the 5th November.We thought about what makes our school special and all the things we love about our school.